Creativity has never been to the question, but the margins of the agency collapse.
An industry built on the promise of differentiation risks that float in a sea of equality, pressed through automation, technology and efficiency. The paradox is clear: as creative agencies become raw materials, they fall victim to customers who pay customers to escape. From my vantage point is the only way out innovation.
Passing advantage: the new standard
I was recently introduced into the work of Columbia Professor Rita McGrath, whose essay 2013 about transient benefit in Harvard Business Review Helping crystallizing what I would feel in our industry. Her starting point is simple but urgent: benefits no longer last. What has ever passed for decades can only take a few months.
Success does not come from defending a canal, but from driving on a Golf – placing opportunities early, they quickly scale and have the discipline to leave what no longer serves. McGrath frames innovation as a cycle: launch, increased, exploit, reconfiguration, loosen. Repeat.
In practice, when growth slows down, the instinct must be cut. Trim overhead, automatis tasks, streamline workflows. But you cannot be informed of relevance. Cutbacks can buy time, but they do not build up a future.
Brands that made innovation an operational model
Chewy started as an e-commerce site for pets. But margins in the retail trade are razor-thin. So they moved to healthcare, not just trade – launching televets, pets insurance and veterinary clinics. By possessing the life cycle of the pet, Chewy spread further than boxes from chunks to services.
A24 could have “only” had an indie studio. Instead, it built a direct-to-consumer engine. AAA24 changes films into membership, merchandos and magazines. Content feeds commerce, commerce fuels community and the flywheel -spins.
Mubi has plotted a space in streaming by combining curation with vertical integration. In addition to his niche platform, it acquired the Match Factory, extensive festival acquisitions and added theatrical distribution. Mubi is more than a streamer-it is a self-sufficient ecosystem of discovery and distribution.
Each of these companies refused to confuse success with sustainability early. They invented themselves again before the tide went out.
Scale hurts, independence helps
Large holders are designed to press every last drop of an old model, not retired. Investors punish operational model shifts. Systems designed for predictability determine reinvention.
Independent companies, on the other hand, can run faster, freely test and legacy models when they no longer serve. Agility beats a scale in a world of transient advantage.
A call for action
At Mocean we make innovation our operational model. We have launched an Office of Innovation with dedicated leadership, time and resources to continuously test, scale and retire as the market evolves.
That’s why I am the Fast Company Innovation FestivalMember of leaders in industries who struggle with the same challenge: how to escape commoditization when the old play books no longer apply.
The era of permanent benefit has disappeared from where I am. Reinvestment must be systemic, not cosmetic. Independent agencies such as Mocean have both freedom and responsibility to show what that looks like. Because ultimately the choice is simple: innovation or irrelevance.
Michael Mcintyre is CEO of Mocean.
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